There’s always a lot of things going on behind the scenes…
A few months ago, the State of Maryland tried to obliterate wholesaling.
Pass legislation to get rid of it.
Destroy it as a viable technique for real estate investors.
Obviously a problem for me.
* And for my students.
* And for Traction REIA members.
* And for real estate investors as a whole in Maryland (and beyond, as other states just copy/paste laws these days…)
National REIA’s lobbyist contacted me when he found out what was proposed.
This is one of the hidden values of belonging to and supporting National REIA through your membership in your local National REIA Chapter like Traction REIA.
National REIA pays for lobbyists to keep these types of things on their radar. At both the federal and state levels. (And there are a lot of states to keep an eye on!)
There are different ways of dealing with these risks: letter campaigns to the legislators, phone call campaigns from constituents, etc.
And sometimes activating a particularly well-connected investor make a couple of calls gets the job done.
In the case of Maryland, which was viewed as an uphill battle, I called my very first student who I trained many years ago.
If you’ve seen me speak, you probably remember me talking about “Mikey”.
He has gone on to do fantastic projects throughout his local area in Maryland. He is respected by, and has the ear of, many of the lawmakers in Maryland as well. Rightfully so, as he has been a force of tremendous good and revitalization in his region.
I contacted Mikey and got him in touch with our lobbyist to work out a plan.
Mikey had a couple of calls with some key folks, and they deep sixed it.
The bill never made it out of committee.
When I first asked Mikey to take action, he told me he isn’t doing as much wholesaling these days.
My response was that legislation is never very surgical, and tends to damage large parts of an industry when they take aim at one “smaller” part, so he’d get hurt by it anyway.
One of the BIG problems is that ideas like banning an entire technique might sound good to some people on the surface, but it never stops there. The unintended consequences almost always push far beyond the original intent, and then wreak havoc throughout an entire industry.
Their intent to shut down “just a few” investors winds up actually hurting the various homeowners they claim to want to protect, because they eliminate the important role creative real estate investors like us play in HELPING homeowners who get into trouble and need us creative real estate investors to save them from their situation.
By quickly bringing capital to broken down and deteriorating houses, wholesalers play a critical role in bringing housing infrastructure back to life and creating homes for engaged tax paying citizens.
We all owe Mikey a BIG thank you.
And National REIA too, for keeping atop of everything and protecting our industry.
Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to run our businesses successfully.
Want to support our federal and state efforts to protect our industry?
Support us supporting you.
Tom Zeeb
President
Traction REIA
Washington DC | Tampa | Sarasota | Online
Traction REIA:
14+ Consecutive Year Recipient of the National REIA “Honors of Merit”
and the “Award of Excellence”
For Best Real Estate Investor Association!
